I also liked a story from a writer new to me, Charles Q. Choi. “By the Will of the Gods” is set on a planet subject to frequent meteor showers, making space travel hazardous. Hap’s parents were killed when their ship was holed by a rock, and the local religion means that Hap is cursed as “starcrossed” – the gods must not have approved of his family. Eventually he is adopted by a temple devoted to “foretelling,” doing menial work; and his surrogate father becomes a gruff man named Harrow, who teaches him self-defense and uses him on certain strange errands. As the story opens, Harrow has been murdered and Hap seems the only person interested in learning who did it and why. That mystery isn’t the real point of the story, though…. What’s cool is what we learn about the politics of Hap’s city of Nightingale, and the bits and pieces we learn about the galactic milieu, numerous human-settled planets linked by wormhole gates, as well as what we learn of Harrow’s secrets and their implications for Hap’s future. I’d be glad to see more stories about Hap, and also stories set elsewhere in this future.